


Come As You Aren't

by Kacka



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Halloween
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-28
Updated: 2016-10-28
Packaged: 2018-08-27 10:51:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8398783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kacka/pseuds/Kacka
Summary: Everyone knows Clarke is hardcore about her Halloween costumes. For some reason, that doesn't stop Bellamy from making a bet with her about it.





	

It starts because Bellamy speaks before thinking.

And _that_ happens because Clarke is sitting on the stool next to him at the bar, flushed and beaming and smelling distinctly of craft glue, and generally throwing him off his game.

If you look at it a certain way, it’s really all her fault.

"Someone’s in a good mood,” Gina observes, finishing some complex drink and graciously allowing Murphy to be the one to deliver it to the table in the back corner. Any excuse she can use to get him out from behind the bar, Bellamy thinks, hiding a smile behind his glass.

"Someone just came up with the best Halloween costume ever.”

“It’s July,” Bellamy feels compelled to point out, hiding another smile when Clarke wrinkles her nose and waves a hand.

“It’ll still be a good idea in a few months.”

When Bellamy and Gina just look at her expectantly, she grins wider.

“Nuh-uh. You know my rules. It stays a secret. All I’m saying is that I think it’s going to top last year’s.”

Clarke is notoriously tight-lipped about her costumes when they’re in the planning stages. Whether she’s afraid someone will steal the idea, or that it will lose its impact if she doesn’t build enough suspense, Bellamy isn’t sure.

Last year she camped out in the art building for weeks, painting a canvas to look like Munch’s _The Scream_ , only with a face-shaped cutout for Clarke to stick her head in. The lengths she went to for accuracy went largely unappreciated by the drunken hordes at the party, who were equally-- if not more-- excited to see someone walking around with a poster colored in Magic Marker to look like a YouTube video screen.

The year before that, she spent hours applying fake injuries and pallor to her skin, so she’d look like a real, undead zombie. It was pretty legit; she even scared one guy so badly, Bellamy is pretty sure he wet his pants.

“You want to bet?” he asks, before he can think better of it, and then tries not to make eye contact with Gina as he can feel her raise an eyebrow at him.

He notoriously doesn’t try very hard on Halloween.

The year Zombie Clarke made her appearance, he showed up to the party in black jeans and a black t-shirt. Every time someone asked what he was supposed to be, he’d give a different answer-- a spy, a black hole, Peter Pan’s shadow, that guy from that teen dystopian movie (he didn’t specify which one; the person accepted it without question)-- and called it a day. Last year he’d put in even less effort, showing up in whatever he was wearing and telling everyone he was a Sim.

He’s never once expected to be in the running for best costume, the prize for which is a $20 gift card to IHOP. Roan King’s annual Halloween blowout is always packed with costumes that range from complex to half-assed. Bellamy usually goes more to observe the mania than to be seen.

So it makes zero sense for him to claim that he’ll have a better costume than Clarke does, but, as usual, he blames her (or his pathetic crush on her) for his lapse in judgment.

“You. Want to bet _me_. About Halloween costumes.” Clarke says, smirking so hard her face must hurt.

"Sure." He shrugs, trying to figure out an argument to back his own claim. "You've never seen what I can do when I actually try."

Clarke raises one eyebrow. "You sure you want to make this bet?"

“Come on, Blake,” Murphy puts in, reaching over Gina for a clean glass. “Put your money where your mouth is.”

“You don’t even know what they’re betting on,” Gina points out.

“So?” He shrugs. “Griffin is insane. I don’t bet against her.”

Clarke gives him a sharp smile and raises her bottle to him before taking a long drink. Bellamy means to find some way to back out, to laugh it off, but his mind gets caught on the long line of her neck and the way her lips fit to the bottle’s opening and the amusement in her eyes when she looks at him again, and he can’t think straight.

“I'm in,” he decides. It surprises no one that he's doubling down on his dumb idea. “What’s the bet?”

“Fifty bucks?” Murphy suggests.

“You _don’t even know what they’re betting on,_ ” Gina repeats, swatting at Murphy with a rag. But they’re both laughing as he dodges her strike.

“I was thinking more a wager of pride,” Clarke says, raising her eyebrows at Bellamy. “We’ll go to IHOP together the day after the party, and whichever one of us wins the gift card gets to pick what costume or outfit the other has to wear.”

There’s a dark glint in her eye that has Bellamy flashing back to the hot dog suit he wore for one of his minimum-wage jobs in high school. He’s had nightmares about that costume gaining sentience and chasing after him.

But he’s never been one to back down from a challenge. Especially not one from Clarke Griffin.

“Okay,” he agrees, turning more on his stool to face her. “Terms: no store-bought costumes. I mean, we can buy the materials but everything has to be made by our own hands.”

Clarke purses her lips, considering. He knows that she’s not great with a needle. Not like his mother taught him to be. This could make or break her idea.

She holds out a hand. “Deal.”

“Deal,” he echoes, trying not to think about the way her hand fits perfectly in his, and instead, focus on the fact that he has no earthly idea where to start coming up with the perfect Halloween costume.

Oh, well. He has months to figure it out. He’ll be fine.

 

* * *

 

He’s not fine. He has no ideas, or none that seem original and culturally relevant enough that they’d win the contest.

It gets bad enough that he almost considers calling off the bet. His threshold for embarrassment is pretty high, and he doesn’t think wearing a weird costume to IHOP would actually be that much of a punishment. Plus, it essentially means more quality time with Clarke, which is never a bad thing.

The only thing standing between him and preemptively admitting defeat is knowing how insufferable Clarke (and Gina, and most of all Murphy) would be if he just gave in.

Still, the concession is on the tip of his tongue when she calls him up one Saturday in early October.

“About the bet…”

He swallows the words. Maybe _she’ll_ forfeit, unlikely as it is.

“You giving up?”

“ _No._ ” He can almost hear her scowl through the phone, and it has him grinning like a lunatic. “I’m asking for a rules change. It’ll still be hand-made everything, but I might need Raven’s hands.”

“Raven’s hands?” He asks, confused. “Are you, like, the back of the horse and she’s the front? I can’t decide which one of you is more of an ass. It’s too close to call.”

“There’s some minor welding involved,” she continues, wisely ignoring him. “And I’m committed to doing the welding either way, but I’m pretty sure you’d rather grant me the exception than let me burn all the skin off my body.”

“But then you could go as Freddy Krueger. I mean, that shows real dedication.”

“Come on, Bellamy. If you want to make it more fair, you can phone a friend too.”

This gives him pause. He could use another brain thinking up ideas.

“Okay,” he says at last. “I’m calling O.”

“Pleasure doing business with you.” He can hear her smile and finds himself smiling back. “Prepare to lose, Blake.”

“In your dreams, Griffin.”

 

* * *

 

Octavia has always had a better handle on cultural trends than he has, so it comes as little surprise to him when she responds to his text ( _What should I be for Halloween?_ ) with more ideas in three minutes than he’s come up with in months.

The costume he selects is manageable enough to get together himself, though he does call his sister in as a resource the night of the party.

“It turned out pretty badass,” she tells him, fingers tugging sharply as she works the straightener through his hair. He winces.

“Don’t sound so surprised; I’m moderately competent. And _ouch_.”

“Do you want my help or not?”

“I do,” he grumbles. “But I’d also like to have hair attached to my head after this.”

“Baby.”

“Brat.”

She sticks her tongue out at him and he grins back at her in the mirror.

“So what are you going to make her wear if you win?”

Bellamy hums. He’s given this some thought. “I was thinking one of those inflatable sumo wrestler costumes? Miller said the baseball team has a couple they use for those between-inning games. He might be able to get his hands on them for me.”

Octavia sighs heavily.

“This is the most convoluted form of flirting I’ve ever seen.”

That’s probably true, Bellamy reasons. He’d thought about using his win to take her on a real date, but that idea died pretty quickly. If Clarke wanted to go on a date with him, she’d be pissed that he wasted his win on something she would’ve done anyways. And if she _doesn’t_ want to date him, well, she’d probably still honor the bet, but it would be a terrible night for everyone.

Besides, it’s more fun this way.

“I’m working the long game,” he tells his sister. She snorts.

“Sure you are. Now sit still so I can do your makeup.”

 

* * *

 

Octavia disappears basically the moment they walk through the door, filtering through the crowd in search of her boyfriend. Bellamy is fine with it; he doesn’t necessarily need to see everyone checking her out in her bikini top, sarong, and lei.

He makes a lap around the house looking for Clarke, but it’s Raven he finds first. She’s also wearing a bathing suit-- seriously, aren’t they _cold?_ \-- with a whistle around her neck and tiny shorts.

“You on duty?” He teases.

“I already had this stuff from lifeguarding in high school,” she shrugs. “Why spend extra money when I look hot in this?”

“Hear hear,” says Gina, emerging from the crowd in an aviator costume with two drinks in hand. “And before you ask, no, I’m not on duty either. You’ll have to serve yourself tonight, Blake.”

“I think I can handle that,” he laughs.

Raven looks him over critically.

“Winter Soldier?”

“Octavia’s idea,” he nods. “She was on makeup too.”

“You should’ve called me in for your lifeline,” Raven says, making a face as she studies the metal arm Bellamy fashioned for himself out of a spray-painted rubber glove, duct tape, and heavy-duty tinfoil. It may not be up to her standards but it’s not a shoddy job either. Bellamy is pretty proud of how his whole ensemble turned out.

“I don’t need it to actually work,” he points out. “But if ever I want my Halloween costume weaponized, you’ll be my first call.”

“I’d better be.”

“I’m honestly impressed,” says Gina. “I thought you were just making the bet to rile Clarke up but you might actually be a contender.” She pauses, exchanging a look with Raven that he can’t read. “You and Clarke didn't plan this, did you?"

“Plan what?”

Raven’s eyebrows shoot up.

“You haven’t seen--”

“Bellamy?”

It’s Clarke’s voice, and he’s weirdly nervous as he turns around.

Of course, he has no reason to be nervous. She’s _beaming_ at him, bright and beautiful. Her outfit is actual armor overtop the shortest skirt he's ever seen her wear, and she's carrying a hammer, which can only make her--

“Thor?”

“No, it’s Clarke.”

He grins.

“That was my next guess.” He holds his non-metal hand out. “Can I see Mjolnir?”

“I don’t know. Are you worthy?”

“One way to find out.”

When she hands it over, their fingers brush and his stomach flips. She steps closer to show him how she put it together, and even after he hands it back to her she doesn’t move away. He gets so caught up in her, in the proximity, he doesn’t even notice when Gina and Raven wander away.

“I’m guessing Raven helped you with the armor.” He taps a plate by her shoulder, listening hard to hear the tinny sound over the music and the other partygoers. They’ve been shuffled slowly toward the wall, and for all they’re surrounded by people it feels like they have some measure of privacy. Plus, the noise levels keep them close, keep her bent toward him. It’s not a bad setup.

“I wouldn’t have made it through all the metalwork without her,” Clarke admits. “At least, not in one piece.”

“Then I’m glad she was there to help. I like you better in one piece.” Clarke’s lips twitch and he clears his throat, glad it’s too dark for her to see him blushing. “You want a drink?”

She looks up at him through her lashes. “No.”

“You want to dance?”

She steps closer, biting her lip and smiling when his eyes flicker down with the motion.

“No.” Before he can come up with another alternative, she’s kissing him-- hard enough he knows it’s really happening, but quick enough he can sense her uncertainty. He manages to catch her before she draws completely away, pulling her back for a longer kiss. Her armor is uncomfortable against his chest and when he moves to put his arms around her, the costumed one makes a crinkling, crumpling noise.

She breaks away, laughing and leaning her forehead against his.

“Bathroom?” She asks, pressing her lips to his Adam’s apple when he swallows hard.

“After you.”

They find it quickly, Bellamy trailing in Clarke’s wake as she weaves through the crowd like a woman on a mission. As soon as they get the door locked, she’s kissing him again, fierce and hard. He cups her face in his hands, slowing it down, making her melt into him, less frantic.

“This doesn’t have to be a one-and-done,” he tells her, backing her up to the counter. “In fact, I’d prefer it not be.”

“I’m gonna date you so hard,” she promises, their teeth clacking against each other as they both smile. “But first--” Her hands travel south and bring him up to speed pretty quickly.

He groans, pressing his face into her neck. “Have I told you I like your costume?”

“No.”

She pushes him back far enough that she can hop up onto the counter.

“I really do. It's awesome.” His fingers trail along her thigh. “Right now, I especially like how short this skirt is.”

“I was hoping you would.” She picks at the tape holding his glove to the tinfoil, laughing breathily as he mouths along her neck and jaw. “I’m not sabotaging your costume, I just really need your hands on me. And in me.”

He drops his head to her shoulder.

“God, Clarke.”

“Yep,” she agrees, getting his glove off and moving his hand to the latch on her breastplate. “But just for tonight.”

He finds her lips again as they both work to get her armor off, chuckling and struggling together when his hair gets stuck in the hinge.

After that, things happen quickly. They’re both wound up, both too aware of the party happening outside to take their time like they want to. And really, once Bellamy sees how amazing her breasts are, it’s near impossible for him to slow down. At some point he knows they'll have a real conversation, but for now, they seem to be on the same page.

When they're done, he presses his lips to her temple as she tries to catch her breath, grinning when she nips at his ear.

“Somewhere in the world,” she says, hopping down when he steps back, “there is a slash fiction writer who is having an inexplicable moment of zen.”

Bellamy laughs and holds up her armor so she can slip back into it.

“Thor and the Winter Soldier aren’t even in any of the movies together.”

“Doesn’t matter.” She lets him latch it for her, then pecks him on the lips. “Someone out there ships it. You have so much to learn, grasshopper.”

Just then, the music cuts out.

“You think they picked the winner already?”

“Time flies when you’re having fun,” he teases, giving up on the glove and stuffing it in his pocket. “Come on, let’s go hear them announce my victory.”

“Oh, you’re going _down_ , Blake.”

“Later,” he promises, ushering her out the door.

When they get out to the main room, Roan’s housemate Anya is standing on the coffee table dressed as the angriest rabbit Bellamy has ever seen.

“--to announce who wins the prize for best costume,” she’s saying in a bored voice. “Like every year, the winner will receive bragging rights and twenty dollars’ worth of pancakes.”

“And glory,” Clarke whispers in Bellamy’s ear, linking her fingers with his. He squeezes her hand just because he can.

“And the winner is--” Anya pauses to flip an index card over-- “Lincoln Oakley.”

Bellamy lets out a loud laugh and feels Clarke freeze against him before doing the same. Somehow, they’d never anticipated anyone else winning. Somehow, in three months, it had never even crossed his mind.

The crowd whoops loudly as Lincoln comes forward to claim the gift card, wearing nothing more a leopard-print loincloth.

“Huh,” Bellamy says, taking in his costume. “I guess we know how we lost.”

“That’s hard to beat,” Clarke agrees. She whistles appreciatively and presses her smile into Bellamy’s shoulder. “But it’s okay. I’ll still treat you to pancakes. You know, since you would’ve lost.”

“Count yourself lucky, Griffin. I would’ve made you wear something really humiliating.”

She slips her hands around his waist.

“I would’ve made you wear Lincoln’s costume,” she says, kissing the dimple in his chin and then his lips. He isn’t even that disappointed; he hasn’t lost nearly as much as he’s gained tonight.

“Next year,” he tells her, twisting his fingers in her cape and pulling her as close as she can get. “Next year is definitely my year.”

“You’re on.”


End file.
